Our writer Daya got the opportunity to have a chat with Daydream Twins (Jordan Terry and Aidan Babinski) all about their start in music, their debut self titled album Daydream Twins (listen here), and so much more!
Hi! Thank you for taking the time to chat, how’re you guys doing?
-We’re doing great! Thank you for asking!
Can you tell us a little bit about the band and how DayDream Twins came to be?
We (Jordan Terry & Aidan Babinski) started dating back in 2020, and it had always been an idea early on to start a band together. We both came from musical backgrounds, therefore writing together came so easy to us. One night we spontaneously decided to write for the first time in Jordan’s old bedroom, leading to the release our first single Carpop. After that we just kept on going.
What’s the story behind the name “DayDream Twins”
Aidan came up with the idea for the name! We feel it suits us well, being that we are practically the same person inside & out.
You dropped your first singles “Carpop” and “Moonlight serenade” in 2021, what was the creative process, the inspiration, for those two songs?
Carpop came on such a whim, honestly. The night we wrote and recorded the track, we weren’t trying to accomplish anything other than to write for our own enjoyment. We submitted for release with only a two week advance, paired with no social media presence. That’s why it was such a surprise when we noticed the song doing well. We had only really advertised it to friends and family around us. After Carpop was out, we decided to plan the next few releases, granted we now took things a little more serious. At first we had ‘Between the Spacetrains and Me’ lined up to be next. We even had submitted it for release. However, we wanted to work on it more, so we halted the release and put out Moonlight Serenade in exchange. We recorded the track quite simply, with an outdated version of Garage Band and a broken Corona bottle as a guitar slide. Jordan then tracked vocals in her car.
How’d you come about finding your sound? Did any of your favorite artists influence the kind of music you make?
We never took direct inspiration for any of our music. We like the idea of letting songs flow directly out of us, and building on the first ideas that come to mind. We are big fans of ambient music, that’s all we ever listen to! If anything, that has inspired us to scatter a few ambient tracks throughout the album.
What’s the DIY band scene like in Texas? Has it affected your band in any way?
The Austin music scene really is great. So much music constantly happening everywhere, and it’s such a tight net community. Surprisingly our audience here isn’t as large as other places. We seem to be getting most traction in Los Angeles. Even some cities out of the country are above Austin, such as London, Sydney, and Toronto. We’d love to try to get out to these places to tour as soon as we can!
You guys just dropped your first self-titled album “DayDream twins” Congratulations! What was the process of creating it? How do you guys feel about releasing it?
Thank you so much! We wanted our album to be as hands-on and self-sufficient as possible. We sat down and camped out at Jordan’s house for a week, where we ended up writing most of the track listing. We had help recording some tracks with our drummer, Jimmy Mercado, and previous bassist, Jaden Dupree, on songs such as “Slovakia Sun Dance” and “Sex in the Desert.” After having some time to sit on the tracks we had completed, we then wrote a new slew of songs (including “Cerise”, “SunnMaschine”, and “Swish”). Shortly after, a few brief sessions of mixing and mastering occurred and the album was ready for release!
Who writes the lyrics? Where did you take inspiration from when writing them?
I (Jordan) write all the lyrics! Most inspiration comes from Aidan and I’s relationship, life experiences, or the way I view things. Some of the songs were written under pressure though, because I had set a deadline for myself and underestimated how much time we really needed to finish the album up. I ended up having to write and record half of the vocal parts during the week leading up to the submission.
For those who haven’t listened, how would you describe your music?
While there’s no denying our Shoegaze-y sound, we describe our sound as ethereal, psychedelic, dreamy, etc. We also tend to delve into noisy and heavy territories from time to time.
What song in your new album did you struggle with creating? And why?
“Sex in the Desert” took some time developing. We started off with a rough demo and from that point forward, it was a roller coaster. Lyrics went through constant revision, the intro underwent alterations a handful of times, the whole song even went through a key change, before it was returned to a more similar version of the initial demo. Once Jimmy and Jaden’s recorded tracks were in order, the ambient intro was recorded on a whim, and the song was finally completed.
“Aurora” is the first song on the album and “Geomancy” is the last song. They’re both beautiful dreamy instrumentals. Why did you decide to begin and end your album with those two songs? Can we expect to hear more songs like that in the future?
There will definitely be more instrumentals in the future! As we talked about earlier, ambient music is our favorite; it takes up ninety percent of what we listen to. We also feel it adds character and gives an album a more cinematic effect to the listener.
For the song “Between the space trains and Me” you guys created a music video. What was that like?
The whole event of creating the video was amazing! We took a weekend trip to White Sands, New Mexico to film. It was just us two and our friend joined to help. Being out in the middle of the dunes was the most peaceful & beautiful experience, it was so quiet. Definitely one of the coolest places we’ve been to. We spent a whole day sunrise to sunset filming and getting photos. It actually took more time to edit than film, Jordan spent probably three days in the editing process. In the end it turned out exactly how we had envisioned, couldn’t have gone any better!
I’ve had “Moonlight Serenade” on replay for months! It has a different vibe than the rest of the album, was there a different approach when making it?
Not necessarily, our music towards the beginning of Daydream Twins tends to hang more on the laid-back, dreamy side of our sound. Moonlight Serenade was the creation of an early writing/recording session and as soon as it was recorded, we felt no other song was more suitable as a second single release.
What can you tell us about the future of “Daydream Twins”, what's the next step?
We plan to ride out our album for awhile, we’re having fun playing a ton of local shows! We’d love to tour the states and release the album on vinyl, and after possibly put out a few more singles or an EP.
Keep up with Daydream Twins!
